Matt Burns for TechCrunch:

Honeywell filed a multi-patent infringement lawsuit against Nest Labs and Best Buy yesterday. The suit alleges that Nest Labs is infringing on seven Honeywell patents. Honeywell is not seeking licensing fees. The consumer electronic conglomerate wants Nest Labs to cease using the technology and is actually looking to collect damages caused by the infringement. Damages? Bullshit. This is about killing the competition.

As we noted yesterday, Nest Labs is the maker of the learning thermostat, and it’s founded by Tony Fadell, who used to run Apple’s iPod division. Matt Burns offers a good explanation of Honeywell’s complaint against Nest. It’s infuriating that, given Honeywell’s patents, it hasn’t bothered to create as good a product as Nest’s.